WS is the national top-level domain (ccTLD) on the Internet for Samoa. The WS country code has been advertised as a “domain hack”, since WS is said to stand for “website” or “web service”, providing a “global” internet presence for registrants, as it supports all internationalized domain names. The domain is popularly used by news organizations to shorten URLs, usually with the suffix “(organization name) new.ws”. Domains of any organization can be registered in the WS zone, regardless of the nature of their activity. The domain is suitable for websites of any topic and is a good alternative to .com, .net, and .org domains, which have relatively few attractive names left. Today more than 161,000 names are registered in the WS domain.
The WS domain control panel allows you to configure NS and renew the domain.
A WS domain can be purchased for a term of up to 10 years. A renewal request for a WS domain should be submitted before the expiration date, or no later than 28 days after the expiration date. If this is not done, the domain will be automatically deleted and will change status to redemptionPeriod.
Advantages of WS
- Many domains available for registration;
- Good indexing by search engines;
- Suitable for resources of various topics;
- The domain name is familiar and equally easy for site visitors to recognize by ear.
| Minimum registration period | 12 months |
| Maximum registration period | 120 months |
| IDN registration available | Yes |
| Minimum domain length, chars | 3 |
| Maximum domain length, chars | 63 |